Search

All posts tagged Barker Gate Rest Garden

I’m delighted to confirm that Nottingham City Women’s Institute has won national funding from the Department for Communities and Local Government’s Pocket Parks programme to restore and rejuvenate the neglected Barker Gate Rest Garden in Nottingham’s Creative Quarter – to create a new pocket park for the city.

Barker Gate Rest Garden is the Creative Quarter’s only open green space and with several thousand people working and living within half a mile of it, there is a real need for a peaceful green oasis in which to rest, reflect, eat and socialise. (Pictures below of the Rest Garden in its current condition)

Members of Nottingham City WI will create defined spaces within the park, including a section dedicated to wild flowers. This area will be allowed to go to seed after flowering, to provide a multitude of feeding and nesting opportunities for wildlife. The area will also be used to produce nutritious leaf mulch and house a carefully designed insect ‘hotel’, allowing a variety of insects to breed and hibernate.

We will be looking to introduce a planting plan which includes bee-friendly plants to give year-round support to Nottingham’s urban bee population. This will also support Nottingham’s Bee Action Plan, which encourages the introduction of pollinator-friendly plants throughout the city, to create ‘green corridors’ to attract bees and other pollinating insects.

Working closely with the local community, the City WI want to encourage birds into the new pocket park too, by installing a variety of feeding stations and using a carefully-developed planting plan for the existing beds, featuring seasonal flowers and berries.

So grab your gardening gloves and your imagination and let’s get to work, ladies!